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Creating a teachable moment with cellphones

Sentinel & Enterprise

Updated:
03/24/2013 06:31:03 AM EDT

Parent Forward by Bonnie J. Toomey

There is a lot of debate over the use of cellphones in school. And even though many schools have banned them, kids still use them discreetly, just like we used to pass notes when the teacher wasn't looking.

According to a 2010 Pew & American Life Project Study, 65 percent of cell-owning teens attending schools that ban phones bring them into the classroom anyway.

Maybe the point is moot, or mute in this case.

On one side of the coin, parents want to be able to talk to their kids anytime. The cellphone allows kids to tell their parents when they are ready to be picked up from after-school activities. Parents feel their kids are safer with a cellphone handy. It is a tool that, in the event of an emergency, lets kids communicate instantly, and even might include a flashlight in case of a power outage. My phone has the Red Cross hurricane app on it.

But on the flip side, teachers fear students are being distracted and spending more time socializing or playing games rather than learning. The biggest infraction of cellphones seems to happen in classrooms that are set up more traditionally with desks in rows, the teacher writing on a chalk board with his or her back to the class, or a professor lecturing out of a text book from behind a podium.

I guess we have to figure out a way to harness all the technology and then run with it.

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Cellphones are not the problem, although some of us fall easily into the blanket complaint that children "have changed." The fact is, time is moving at a rapid pace and things ARE constantly changing.

And cellphones are just the tip of the iceberg. Think of all the emerging cutting-edge technology that lies beneath.

I just finished teaching a two-week dance workshop at a prep school, part of a larger program to introduce students to all of the arts. I worked intensely with sophomore students. The goal: to get them to come away with an appreciation for dance.

I made sure I turned my cellphone off or left it in my car before I entered the classroom. I guess I was old school. I was surprised that every student seemed to be Velcro-ed to a cellphone, which was on at all times. And many faculty members followed suit.

I noticed while I was teaching as soon as there was an opening, a window, a transition during my class, the kids would pull out their cells and their heads would go down. It was almost like a dance -- maybe next year's performance theme?

I realized quickly that I needed them to be excited about the 400-year-old art of ballet or that I was going to lose them altogether.

It would be easy to say that the focus of the sophomores I was teaching paralleled that of the 4-year-olds I taught a decade ago. But complaining about it wasn't going to help.

I went home and thought about how I could make such an old art form more interesting. As I was surfing the net, I came across the Scottish National Ballet's trailer for Cinderella. I was captivated by the speed at which the whole story was told in a two-minute clip.

The next day I walked into the classroom with my cellphone on. I placed it on the stool near the stage and set it on silent. The light glowed reassuringly.

After a quick ballet barre, we gathered together in a circle and I presented my idea for a ballet trailer.

"Like a movie?" one student asked.

They were hooked. And then we got to work. Now I was able to teach them something worthwhile and all the French terms, the history, as well as the dance positions of the body and the variations, although simplified, were being retained and executed!

We were going to present our ballet trailer at the end of the workshop for the rest of the student body. It would be techy and fast, yet hold the essence of the traditional ballet.

I noticed their cellphones stayed put for a while, and I couldn't have been happier. I had a group of attentive dancers working hard and fast toward presenting a version of Charles Perrault's "Cinderella."

As for the merit of cellphones and their place in the classroom, all I can say is this: By the end of the program I had a bunch of teenagers who had transformed into a company of dancers even with thumbs flying and heads down.

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